What will the gas carrier of the future look like?

The cold, which often played a decisive role in major wars involving Russia, also helps the country on the gas front. The United States, which has set itself the goal of occupying a quarter of the world LNG market and seriously displacing Russian hydrocarbons not only in Asia, but also in Europe, was faced with abnormal frosts and was forced to become importers of gas produced in Yamal. The sanctions imposed by the American authorities against the Novatek company do not prevent American companies from purchasing liquefied natural gas from the Yamal LNG plant.

The polar vortex on the East Coast of the United States is to blame. Due to severe cold weather, the demand for gas in the eastern states has increased significantly, and prices have risen to $6.3 thousand per 1 thousand cubic meters. Against the backdrop of peak demand, American companies cannot transfer shale gas from other states to the region in the required volume due to the limited capacity of the internal gas pipeline and therefore were forced to go to the market for more or less favorable energy prices.

Currently, the first tanker with a batch of LNG produced at the Yamal plant is being unloaded at the port of Boston. The ship arrived on the shores of New England from the British county of Kent, where the Isle of Grain terminal is located. Gas from Yamal was delivered there by the gas tanker Christophe de Margerie, the LNG was unloaded into the terminal storage, and then pumped back into the Gaselys tanker of the French company Engie.

Despite the fact that even during the loading of LNG in the village of Sabetta on Yamal, the Malaysian company Petronas became the owner of the gas, and after it was resold several times, this gas remains Russian in origin. And although formally this is just a purchase on the global market, in fact the United States has become consumers of fuel from Russia.

Gaselys brought the future warmth to the USA with adventures. On January 19, a little short of reaching its destination, the tanker suddenly turned around and sailed to Spain, and the next day repeated its maneuver and again headed for Boston. Engie explained such movements by weather conditions, but a number of experts and analysts suggested that the gas carrier began to “wobble” in search of a better price offer.

However, even having sailed to Boston on the morning of January 24, the French tanker did not immediately moor to the shore and stood in the roadstead in the port waters for several days. On January 28, the US Coast Guard confirmed that the vessel was brought to port by tugs and a routine inspection was carried out on it. According to the Marine Traffic monitoring system, Gaselys has been in port since 9 am on Sunday.

But the story with Yamal gas did not end there. Last weekend, Bloomberg, citing data from the cargo tracking company Kpler SAS, reported that the Provalys tanker was preparing to be sent to the US East Coast: its task was to pick up a shipment of LNG in Dunkirk, which had previously been delivered to France from Russia. According to preliminary estimates by Kpler SAS, the second French ship with LNG from the Russian Federation will reach American shores on February 15.

Most likely, the new owner of Russian LNG will receive a price for its gas that is tied to spot gas prices in the New England region, currently about $10 per million Btu, and therefore such supplies remain profitable, notes Alexander Sobko, an analyst at the Energy Center at Skolkovo Business School. In addition, shipping to the US is more than half the price compared to Asia.

For the past three years, the United States has purchased LNG from Trinidad and Tobago. However, due to the cold weather, we were forced to consider other options. Engie bought LNG from Dunkirk before the start of the winter season in the expectation that demand could not be fully met by supplies from Trinidad.

“All we knew at the time of purchase was that the cargo would come from Northwest Europe and that the LNG would be of the right quality for New England,” Carol Churchill, a spokeswoman for the Everett terminal, explained to Bloomberg.

According to the Marine Traffic monitoring system, Provalys is still in Dunkirk.

Considering more and more new sanctions, as well as competition for a share of the LNG market in the world, the United States would not buy Yamal gas directly from Novatek in any case, notes Ilya Zharsky, managing partner of the Veta expert group. As for pricing, even if such an agreement were concluded, direct sales would hardly be more profitable than occasional purchases of gas on the external European market, the expert believes.

Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Energy, Alexander Novak, said that he did not experience euphoria or any special feelings that Russian gas had been delivered to Boston. “This is not Russian gas, Russian gas was sold. The molecules are Russian, but in fact they are the property of buyers of Russian gas. This suggests that the LNG market is global,” he said at a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Experts do not exclude that new adventures may await the current shipment of Yamal gas in the Atlantic. “It is possible that as the tanker moves toward the United States, prices in New England will fall, and the second tanker with Yamal LNG will turn around and continue moving in a different direction,” Sobko said.

In the next 20 years, according to a new forecast BP Energy Outlook 2035, published by the British energy company BP, global energy demand will continue to grow strongly and increase by 37% , and the demand for natural gas will exceed the demand for oil and coal.

“Despite this prospect, there is no reason for rejoicing at Gazprom’s Moscow headquarters,” writes the German newspaper Die Welt.

The reason, the report's authors note, is that "the Russian pipeline network will gradually lose its importance as a means of transporting gas." It will be replaced by liquefied gas tankers, which will revolutionize the global energy market and leave Russia among the losers.

In general, by 2035, the share of gas in the balance of the world economy, according to BP forecast, will be 26-28% and most of it will be transported not through pipes, but through LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminals.

“Sharp growth in liquefied gas transportation will occur before 2020 and will be approximately 8% per year, which essentially means that tankers will replace gas pipelines as the most important means of transportation by 2035,” the study predicts.

I do not agree with these statements Leading analyst of the National Energy Security Fund Igor Yushkov:

“The calculation is made that there will be many LNG producers, they will begin to compete with each other, and gas will be cheaper. But so far we don’t see anyone actively producing cheap LNG,” Yushkov states in an interview NSN. - The calculation is made that Australia will produce huge volumes, that the United States will supply large volumes. But the cost of their gas is very high, because in Australia, for example, it is obtained from coal rocks, and it costs $600-700 per thousand cubic meters. It can only be sold in the Asian market, where prices are high. American gas, if it does come, will be in small volumes - they are unlikely to exceed 60 billion cubic meters of gas per year. And this is not a fact, because the economy of American companies is in a rather deplorable state due to the fact that the price of oil has fallen, and they compensated for their losses precisely through oil production. In addition, gas from America will be more expensive because the “delivery leverage” is very high. We now predict that Russian gas for Europeans will cost $220-250 per thousand cubic meters. It is linked to oil - oil has fallen in price, and gas has fallen in price. Forecasts for cheap LNG can only be justified if Gazprom itself sets up LNG terminals,” the expert believes.

“For us, tanker gas delivery cannot be more profitable than pipeline delivery. It is only profitable to ship LNG tankers over long distances. And Gazprom plans to supply gas mainly over short distances - to Europe, China - neighboring countries. Here, the issue of building gas pipelines, in particular South Stream, is to abandon transit countries, primarily Ukraine. This is a strategic issue for both Russia and Europe,” Yushkov recalled in an interview NSN.

As the same Die Welt writes, already in many Arab states, for example in Qatar, there are huge - the size of an entire plant - terminals that liquefy natural gas for its further transportation by sea. In Europe, in turn, a number of marine terminals for receiving LNG have already been built.

The change in the most important means of gas delivery will lead to far-reaching consequences for gas prices and the positioning of classic natural gas suppliers, such as Russia. “In addition, an increase in the share of liquefied gas will allow consumers from Europe and China to diversify possible suppliers.” With the proliferation of gas supertankers, the old rules of the gas business will remain a thing of the past, Western analysts predict.

In this part Leading analyst of the National Energy Security Fund Igor Yushkov agrees that Ro Russia, indeed, needs to develop its own technology for the construction of LNG terminals and build them, first of all, in the Asian part.

“This is, first of all, a project on Sakhalin - there is one operating plant there today, and it is planned to commission either the third stage of this plant, or to build a new Rosneft plant. Plus - the Vladivostok-LNG and Yamal-LNG projects - all of them need to be implemented and gas supplied to Asian markets, where prices are highest. This is not an end in itself, this is not a rejection of the pipeline segment. No one is going to build new pipelines to Europe, except for the Turkish Stream. You shouldn’t get carried away with construction in China either - you need to build the “Power of Siberia”, extend it to Vladivostok and build an LNG terminal there in order to maneuver between markets. Some should be sent by pipe, and some should be sent to Japan, South Korea, or China in the form of LNG. To have a choice of where to deliver. Because with one pipe you will have a monopsony and one buyer. Here you need to approach each specific case wisely. It is wrong to say that “the pipeline gas segment is dead, let’s build LNG” "- concluded Igor Yushkov in a conversation with NSN.

The ice-class gas tanker Eduard Toll is the second tanker of the type, a series of 15 of which is being built as part of the large-scale Russian project for the production of liquefied natural gas Yamal LNG. Construction is underway in the Republic of Korea at the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering shipyard.

Gas carriers of this series are capable of year-round operation at temperatures down to -50 degrees Celsius. Ice reinforcements of the high Arctic category (Arc7) will allow them to independently overcome ice up to 2.1 meters thick when moving stern first. The vessels are equipped with three Azipod-type propulsion complexes with a total power of 45 MW, which is comparable to the power of a nuclear icebreaker. New membrane gas storage system GT NO 96 GW, used in cargo tanks with a total volume of 172,600 cubic meters. m, ensures safe transportation of LNG along the Northern Sea Route.

According to DSME, shipping companies Mitsui OSK Lines and Teekay will receive a total of nine tankers of this series, and shipping company Dynagas will have five.

The lead vessel of this series is the gas carrier (“Christophe de Margerie”), which was built in November 2016.

The gas tanker Eduard Toll was built for the shipping company Teekay. Named in honor of the famous Russian explorer Baron Eduard Toll, who died during a polar expedition. In 1900-1902, polar explorers studied the sea currents of the Kara and East Siberian seas and searched for the legendary Sannikov Land. The schooner "Zarya" was damaged, and Toll and several other polar explorers who landed on Bennett Island disappeared without a trace in the ice on the way to the mainland.

Gas tanker "Eduard Toll" IMO: 9750696, flag Bahamas, home port of Nassau, first steel cutting ceremony for the vessel took place in April 2016, launched in January 2017, handed over in December 2017 to the customer. Shipbuilder: Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, South Korea. Owner and operator: Teekay LNG Partners.

Main characteristics: Gross tonnage 127,000 tons, deadweight 97,000 tons. Length 299.0 meters, beam 50 meters, draft 12 meters. Speed ​​in open water - 19.5 knots; speed when traveling in ice up to one and a half meters thick is 5.5 knots.

RS class symbol: KM(*) Arc7 AUT1-ICS OMBO EPP ANTI-ICE LI CCO ECO-S BWM(S) BWM(T) WINTERIZATION(-50) gas carrier type 2G (methane) (Arc7 at d<=12.0 m).

The new tanker is designed to transport liquefied natural gas from the Yamal LNG plant under construction; it will sail from the Arctic port of Sabetta on the shore of the Gulf of Ob in the Kara Sea to the terminal in Zeebrugge (Belgium, North Sea), where the largest LNG storage and transshipment hub is located.

January 10, 2018, an independent 16-day passage in the waters of the Northern Sea Route from Cape Dezhnev to the entrance to the Gulf of Ob. According to the message dated July 06, it is in the Chukchi Sea and is following open water. The tanker left the port of Sabetta with a shipment of LNG and is heading to the Chinese port of Jiangsu Rudong. The ice part of the Northern Sea Route was crossed by the ship independently without icebreaker assistance in just 9 days. On July 19, the LNG unloading ceremony took place at the port of Jiangsu Rudong, China. The net travel time of the LNG tanker from the port of Sabetta to its destination was 19 days,

The world's first ice-class gas tanker arrived at the Arctic port of Sabetta (located on the western shore of the Ob Bay of the Kara Sea) in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The construction of the vessel was completed by Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME) in South Korea in November 2016. Less than two months ago it left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. On February 12, the tanker Christophe de Margerie (named after the CEO of Total, who died in a plane crash in 2014), filled with a test volume of liquefied natural gas (the ship is fueled by stripped LNG), entered the Kola Bay, heading to Murmansk. Two days later, the gas carrier continued its journey east to the Gulf of Ob for testing in ice conditions. The vessel will be included in the time charter of Yamal Trade.

According to Rosmorport, this is the first call to the port of Sabetta for ships of this type (length - 299 meters, width - 50 meters, draft - 11 meters): “The vessel will undergo sea and mooring tests at the technological berth within a month. It is also planned to carry out edging in ice conditions in the limited space of the turning basin in the water area of ​​the seaport. In addition, technological processes for loading and unloading liquefied gas will be worked out.”

Christophe de Margerie is the first of fifteen Arc7 ice-class gas tankers for the Yamal LNG project. Capacity - 172.6 thousand cubic meters. According to Sovcomflot, in terms of power plant power, 45 MW, the gas carrier is comparable to a nuclear icebreaker. The tanker became the founder of a new type of vessel - YAMALMAX, associated with the transportation of large volumes of gas in the shallow Gulf of Ob.

LNG will be delivered from Sabetta to the Asian region via the Northern Sea Route during summer navigation. This will significantly reduce the time required compared to traditional routes, as well as reduce fuel consumption by ships and reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Each vessel will cost approximately $350 million. The schedule for commissioning the production capacity of the LNG plant provides for the delivery of ships from 2017 to 2021.

Let us recall that earlier Yamal LNG held an international tender with the participation of nine leading shipowners with relevant experience and qualified as operators of gas tankers. As a result of the competitive selection, the winners were: Sovcomflot (Russia), Teekay (Canada) in partnership with CLNG (China), MOL (Japan) in partnership with CSLNG (China), Dynagas (Greece) in partnership with CLNG and Sinotrans (China) . At the same time, only the Russian company has real experience in year-round operation of shuttle tankers in the Arctic and subarctic seas - within the framework of the Sakhalin-1, Sakhalin-2, Varandey, Prirazlomnoye and Novoportovskoye projects.

The Yamal LNG natural gas liquefaction complex is being implemented by Novatek in partnership with Total (20%), CNPC (20%) and the Silk Road Fund (9.9%). The plant will be built on the resource base of the South Tambeyskoye field (proven and probable gas reserves - 927 billion cubic meters). The plant's capacity is 16.5 million tons of LNG, the total investment volume is 1.27 trillion rubles. Commissioning is planned for 2017. Almost the entire volume has been contracted - 96% of the future LNG volume. Last November, Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the first LNG filling, which will take place no later than November 2017.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) maritime transport sector has not escaped the impact of the crisis in the world's largest markets. Despite the overall increase in volumes, freight costs have fallen sharply due to excess transport capacity. Against this background, the Russian Sovcomflot is trying to expand its place in the oil and gas transportation market. So far, all of the company’s gas carriers have been built abroad, but in the future Russia plans to transport raw materials on its own LNG tankers. And the state is ready to change legislation to ensure demand for the national carrier

The LNG shipping market is experiencing difficult times, despite volume growth of 2.5% in 2015. Excess capacity has led to low rates for leasing LNG tankers: prices have fallen to $25 thousand per day from a peak of $155 thousand in mid-2012. According to the consulting company Poten & Partners, in 2016 the number of idle vessels should be halved. In another year, stable demand is predicted against the backdrop of the commissioning of new gas liquefaction and regasification capacities. And in the next three years, the global fleet of LNG tankers will grow by 30%, adding 128 new vessels.

The current market situation reflects low demand for gas in Asia amid the growth of nuclear and coal-fired energy generation in Japan and South Korea. The International Energy Agency predicts an oversupply of gas on the market in the next 15 years. Cheap coal, increased energy efficiency and renewable energy production will lead to low growth in gas demand. Analysts predict an increase in mergers and acquisitions in the shipping market. Thus, Reuters reports that the largest Dynagas, Golar LNG and GasLog have agreed to transfer 14 tankers to a single pool in order to reduce costs. Several small shipping companies have received offers to take over or sell ships. The deal of the year was the takeover of BG by Royal Dutch Shell: as a result, the largest operator with a fleet of 70 tankers for transporting liquefied natural gas appeared on the market. According to Shell, global demand for natural gas will grow by an average of 2% per year until 2020, while the liquefied natural gas market will double in size

Against this background, Russia is trying to protect its market. Changes may be made to Russian legislation in order to limit the transportation of oil and gas by ships not flying the Russian flag, and from 2020 - by ships not built in the Russian Federation. It is assumed that by this time the Far Eastern shipbuilding complex Zvezda will be capable of producing gas carriers. Full commissioning of this shipbuilding center, the development project of which is currently being implemented by Rosneft in technological partnership with a number of foreign companies, is expected in 2024. USC, loaded with military orders, promises to increase the share of civilian shipbuilding from 10 to 25% by 2025. But so far all gas carriers operated by our national carrier, Sovcomflot, have been built abroad.

Last year was one of the most successful in the entire history of Sovcomflot (the largest Russian shipping company, 100% of the shares are owned by the state). The company is one of the world's leading players in the field of maritime transportation of hydrocarbons and servicing offshore oil and gas projects. It works both under long-term contracts for the supply of oil and LNG, ensuring the operation of oil and gas platforms, and under spot contracts. The existing fleet construction program is focused on the highly profitable segment of servicing projects implemented in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, and assumes that new vessels will sail under the flag of the Russian Federation and specialize either in coastal shipping or offshore oil and gas projects. Sovcomflot approaches each such project individually, ordering unique vessels for each specific project. The ships currently being built by Sovcomflot belong to a new generation with a high ice class.

Russian gas carrier

The gas fleet includes 13 vessels (one is still under construction). Of the 12 vessels in operation, eight are LNG tankers and four vessels are designed to transport liquefied petroleum gas. Not long ago, the SKF Arctic and SKF Polar, which had become the first gas carriers of Sovcomflot, were decommissioned. The company received them with a valid charter for the benefit of Stream LNG (a joint venture between Repsol and Gas Natural). These two first generation LNG carriers were built in 1969 in Sweden. Thanks to SCF Arctic and SCF Polar, Sovcomflot has acquired independent experience in the premium segment of the market for the transportation of liquefied natural gas. Gas carriers have successfully transported LNG from Qatar and Algeria to ports in Spain and France, and from Trinidad and Tobago to Boston. In recent years, SCF Arctic and SCF Polar have been used for regasification and ship-to-ship LNG transshipment as part of the Escobar project at the mouth of the Parana River in Argentina, thanks to which Sovcomflot now has a unique capability for Russian companies experience in these areas. Now the company hopes to use it in Gazprom’s new project in Kaliningrad to build a floating regasification terminal Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) of ice class Arc 4, which will be built at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard.

The eight LNG carriers in operation include the conventional Tangguh Towuti and Tangguh Batur (built in 2008 at the Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering shipyards, sailing under the flag of Singapore), Grand Elena and Grand Aniva (built in 2007 and 2008 at the shipyards of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, sailing under the flag of Cyprus) and Atlanticmax Velikiy Novgorod, Pskov, SCF Melampus, SCF Miter (built in 2014-2015 at the STX Shipbuilding shipyards, sailing under the Liberian flag). High-tech gas carriers of the Atlanticmax type, chartered under long-term contracts in the interests of Gazprom and Shell, can be used to transport liquefied natural gas from most of the world's LNG terminals, with the exception of Sabetta (Yamal LNG project). Ice class Ice 2 will not allow these vessels to be used on the Northern Sea Route. The first ice-class LNG tanker Arc 7, named Christophe de Margerie, for the Yamal LNG project was launched at the Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering shipyard at the beginning of the year, in October this year it will be handed over to Sovcomflot, and in winter navigation it should undergo ice tests with a call at the port of Sabetta. It is planned that this first Ymalmax class gas carrier, which has no analogues in the world, will sail under the Russian flag.

Sovcomflot also works with Shell within the framework of Sakhalin-2. The project operator Sakhalin Energy, together with SCF, manages the oil and gas terminal in the port of Prigorodnoye (one of the leaders in terms of transshipment volumes among Russian port terminals). The first supply of LNG to the world market of the Sakhalin-2 project was carried out on the Sovcomflot gas carrier Grand Aniva in March 2009, and in March 2015 the LNG tanker Grand Elena completed its 100th voyage from Prigorodny. In August 2015, the thousandth shipment of LNG was carried out as part of Sakhalin-2, most of it was sent on Sovcomflot gas carriers. The volume of a standard batch of liquefied natural gas is 145 thousand cubic meters. m. Now companies are making plans to develop and transfer sea and river transport in Russia to liquefied natural gas. In addition, Sovcomflot hopes that its gas carriers SCF Melampus and SCF Miter, commissioned last year, will be used to transport liquefied natural gas from the floating FLNG plant of Shell's Australian Prelude project. The deal to finance the construction of these two tankers won the competition of the industry publication Marine Money in the “Project Financing” category. The Russian company managed to attract a consortium of European banks to the project, including the Dutch ING Bank N.V. Sovcomflot's transactions have received top Marine Money awards for the fifth year in a row.

Privatization is ahead

Sovcomflot was included in the list of assets, packages in which the Russian government expects to sell in 2016 to replenish the budget. It is planned to sell a stake of 25% minus 1 share, which should bring at least 24 billion rubles to the Russian treasury. Recently, the Ministry of Economic Development appointed VTB Capital as an investment consultant for the sale of the state stake. At the same time, the bank acted as one of the organizers of the transaction for the sale of Sovcomflot Eurobonds. Seven-year bonds totaling $750 million were sold to investors. The company plans to use the funds to repurchase Eurobonds due in 2017, as well as to pay off other debt. At the end of the first quarter, Sovcomflot showed an increase in net profit by 9.2%, to $103.1 million (compared to the same period last year). For comparison, the company ended 2015 with a record figure, earning $354.5 million, which is four times more than in 2014. Sovcomflot believes that the planned privatization may negatively affect the liquidity of the state-owned company's debt securities and their prices.

The company's fleet today includes 140 vessels with a total deadweight of 12.3 million tons, including oil tankers, product carriers and shuttle tankers, gas carriers, specialized vessels (tugs, supply vessels, research vessels), and bulk carriers. The shipbuilding program includes eight vessels with a deadweight of more than 200 thousand tons - one Arctic gas carrier, four icebreaking supply vessels for offshore production platforms, three Arctic shuttle tankers. The company is strengthening its position in the segments of liquefied natural gas transportation and servicing offshore oil and gas production. In the first quarter, in addition to the Christophe de Margerie gas carrier for the Yamal LNG project, a new Sovcomflot oil tanker was launched, which will operate under a long-term agreement for oil transportation within the framework of another Arctic project “New Port” of the Gazprom Neft company "